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sacre, however, was stopped as soon as the danger had passed away. After the victory, Henry sailed from Calais to Dover, and, with his chief captives in his train, made a triumphant entry into London, amid gorgeous shows and pageants. He himself observed a studied simplicity in dress and bearing, and, it is said, refused to allow his helmet, dinted with many blows, to be carried before him.

4. Treaty of Troyes.—In July 1417, Henry again invaded Normandy, and won fortress after fortress, while the French were occupied with quarrels among themselves. Rouen, after a gallant defence, surrendered, and there Henry built a palace and held his court. At last the French Queen, and Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, who had the King in their keeping, made at Troyes, May 21, 1420, a treaty with the English invader, by which he obtained the hand of the King's daughter Katharine, the regency of the kingdom, and the succession after Charles' death to the crown, which was to be for ever united with that of England. But as the French King's eldest son, the Dauphin Charles, who was thus disinherited, of course did not acknowledge this treaty, war was still carried on with him and his friends.

5. Death of Henry.-Henry now returned to England with his new-made Queen ; but ere long he was recalled to France by the defeat and death of his brother the Duke of Clarence, in battle with the Dauphin's men and their Scottish auxiliaries. On this campaign Henry carried with him young King James I. of Scotland, who sixteen years ago had been unjustly made prisoner by Henry IV., and his presence served as an excuse for executing as a traitor every captured Scot. By the taking of Meaux, Henry became actual master of the greater part of France north of the Loire; but his career was now run. He sickened, and died at Vincennes, Aug. 31, 1422, maintaining to the end his wonted composure. When during his last hours the minis

ters of religion around his bed were by his order reciting the penitential psalms, he interrupted them at the words 66 Build Thou the walls of Jerusalem," and said that he had intended, after effecting peace in France, to go to Jerusalem and free the Holy City. This was no mere death-bed resolution. Henry had really meditated a Crusade, and had sent out a Burgundian knight, Gilbert de Lannoy, to survey the coasts and defences of Egypt and Syria. This survey was completed and reported just after the King's untimely death. Henry's own people, and especially his soldiers, well-nigh worshipped him. His funeral procession from Paris and Rouen to Calais, and from Dover to London and Westminster, was more sumptuous than that of any King before him. The sacred relics were removed from the eastern end of the Confessor's chapel in Westminster Abbey to make room for his tomb, which was honoured almost as that of a saint. Above the tomb there still hang his saddle and his helmet. Henry left one son, an infant only a few months old, who bore his name. His widow Katharine afterwards made an ill-assorted match with one of her attendants, a Welsh gentleman called Owen Tudor-the origin of the Tudor line.

6. The Navy.-The honour of founding a royal navy is claimed for Henry V. Hitherto the King had depended for his fleet upon ships furnished by the Cinque Ports and other maritime towns, or those pressed from his subjects, or hired from foreigners; but Henry in addition built large vessels of his own.

7. Richard Whittington.-To this period belonged "the flower of merchants," Richard Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London-first under Richard II., then under Henry IV., and again under Henry V. The familiar tale of Whittington and his Cat is an old legend; but what, if any, foundation there was for it, is not known.

Whittington at

any rate had a real existence; he advanced large sums to Henry V. for his wars, and was a benefactor to the City of London.

CHAPTER XXIII.

HENRY VI.

Henry VI.; the Maid of Orleans (1)—strife among the nobles, Henry's marriage; murder of Suffolk (2)—Jack Cade's rebellion (3)-Wars of the Roses; succession of the Duke of York; his death; Edward of York raised to the throne (4).

1. Henry VI. of Windsor, 1422-1461.—By the deaths of Henry V. and Charles VI. within two months of each other, the infant Henry of Windsor became King of England and France; though in the latter country there was a rival King, the Dauphin, who reigned at Bourges as Charles VII., and kept up the war with John Duke of Bedford, who was Regent of France for his nephew. In 1428 the English began the siege of Orleans, and its fall, which would lay Charles' provinces open to them, seemed at hand, when France was delivered as by a miracle. From Domrémy a peasant girl of sixteen, Joan of Arc by name, came to Charles, declaring herself sent by Heaven to conduct him to Rheims for his coronation. Rheims, the crowning-place of the French Kings, was then in the English power. Mounted and armed like a knight, Joan led the Dauphin's army to Orleans, where she raised the siege; and thenceforth the stout English soldiers quailed before the "Maid of Orleans." Her mission in their eyes was not from Heaven, but from hell, and for that they feared her all the more. Fresh successes increased her reputation: Lord Talbot, one of the best of the English

captains, encountered her, June 18, 1429, at Patay, where he was defeated and taken prisoner. As she had promised, Charles VII. was crowned at Rheims. But in the next year, while heading a sally from Compiègne, she was taken prisoner by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English, Charles never so much as offering to ransom her. The English council delivered her to be tried at Rouen by Cauchon Bishop of Beauvais, and French churchmen lent themselves to her destruction. Condemned as a heretic, the heroic maid was burned alive at Rouen, May 30, 1431, a victim to the ingratitude of her friends and the brutality of her foes. But she had awakened the spirit of France, and the English began to lose ground. Bedford died in 1435, and gradually both the inheritance of Henry II. and the subsequent conquests were lost past recovery. In 1452 the people of Aquitaine, and especially those of Bordeaux, which had capitulated to Charles in the previous year, sought to return to the milder government of England, but the veteran Talbot, now Earl of Shrewsbury, who was sent to their aid, was overthrown and killed at Chatillon, 1453, and Bordeaux was forced again to surrender to the French. To England nothing was left but Calais and a barren title, and thus ended the Hundred Years' War.

2. Government in England.—Meanwhile in England there had been nothing but jealousies and struggles among the great men. In the first place Henry's uncle, Humfrey Duke of Gloucester, called "the Good," who was Protector during the King's early childhood, strove for the mastery with Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and afterwards Cardinal. Henry himself, gentle and of weak intellect, had no more authority as a man than he had had as a child, and after his marriage in 1445, his wife Margaret and her favourite counsellor, William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, had the chief power. Margaret was the daughter of René of Anjou, nominal

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King of Sicily, to whom, amidst much murmuring, Anjou and Maine, then held by the English, were given up. Suffolk, disliked as the negotiator of this match, was also popularly believed to have caused the death of Gloucester, which took place in 1447; but when loss after loss befell the English in France, the indignation against the minister who thus misconducted affairs rose to fury. To satisfy the House of Commons the King, in 1450, sentenced him to five years' banishment; but his enemies would not let him escape so easily. On his passage to Calais he was intercepted by a vessel of the English navy, and his head struck off.

3. Jack Cade.-The murder of Suffolk was followed by a formidable insurrection of the people of Kent under one John or Jack Cade, who called himself by the more dignified name of John Mortimer. They encamped on Blackheath to the number of 20,000, and from thence sent to the King a statement of their grievances—the maladministration of the government, the evil counsellors of the King, the oppressive action of the Statutes of Labourers, the extortions of the sheriffs and tax-gatherers, and the interference of the lords in county elections. Sir Humfrey Stafford being sent against the insurgents, was defeated and slain; after which, the Kentish captain entered London unresisted. Gallantly arrayed like a lord or knight, he rode through the streets to London-stone, which he struck with his sword, saying, “Now is Mortimer lord of this city." Getting Lord Saye and Sele, one of the King's most obnoxious ministers, into his power, he had him beheaded in Cheapside. Saye's son-in-law, Cromer, sheriff of Kent, who was accused of extortion, underwent the same fate. The plundering of some houses turned the citizens against Cade, and with the aid of soldiers from the Tower they defended London Bridge against him. After a six hours' conflict, most of his followers

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